


To Know As He Did

by vials



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Raoul Silva is Alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 17:51:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11468622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: The two of them had the same idea on the anniversary of M's death, which must say something.





	To Know As He Did

When James’s parents had died, someone he couldn’t remember had foolishly told him that the human mind could endure any kind of pain; that it would eventually reach a kind of critical mass and be simply unable to feel any more pain. It was at that moment, the unknown idiot had said, that one would simply move on.

James had thought it was bollocks then and he knew it was bollocks now. He had lost far too many people in his life and each and every time it wounded him deeper. By the time M’s death had finally begun to sneak up on him, the reality of it settling in and making itself comfortable in every connection of his consciousness, he knew there was truly no end to the amount of pain a human could feel.

Perhaps a lot of people would agree with the notion that it was bad to dwell on a death, but James found it useful in small doses. It had been that was even since he had been a child, and every anniversary of his parents’ death he would crawl down into the priest’s hole and give himself over to grief. It was, he supposed, what allowed him the ability to function for the rest of the year. It was more practical than the usual advice, anyway – the kind that insisted it was healthier to pretend such things were linear and to ignore anything that suggested otherwise.

It was for this reason that he found himself at that lonely chapel ever year, when the frost was thick on the ground and the lock covered in thick ice. The charred remained of Skyfall looked particularly at odds with the pristine landscape, but James never looked at the house. He made his way directly to the churchyard, paying the silent graves of his parents a respectful nod, and then it was directly into the chapel and its brief and, thanks to the broken windows and cracks in the walls, unpredictable shelter from the wind outside. 

This year, his companion had beaten him to it, which was surprising. James had seen no other forms of transport in the area and had expected to be alone for a few hours, but he supposed ‘predictable’ wasn’t a word he would use to describe the man sitting in front of him. James walked up the debris covered aisle, wondering just how many more harsh Scottish winters the old masonry would be able to weather. It would be an even colder few hours without the walls protecting them, loosely, from the wind.

“You can’t tape a broken heart back together with whiskey, you know,” he said as he approached the seated figure in the front pew. Still, he didn’t refuse the bottle when it was offered to him, and once he had sat down he took a grateful swig. The alcohol was warm, a welcome change from the painfully cold air outside.

“What concerned damsel did you hear that from, James?” Silva asked with a laugh, taking the bottle back. “Tell her it won’t stop me from trying.”

“It was actually the charming lady I was seeing in Turkey,” James replied, and, as it always did, his shoulder twinged at the memory of it. “I told her much the same thing.”

“Turkey!” Silva exclaimed, again passing the bottle to James. “A lifetime ago. Do you ever wish you’d stayed?”

“Christ, no,” James said, pulling a face. “I was out of my mind with boredom. I was almost glad for your little stunt.”

“I suppose you were looking for an excuse to go back?” Silva asked. “Something big enough that it would eclipse your anger at her?”

“Did anyone ever tell you you’d made a good shrink?” James asked, and Silva laughed again.

“Maybe for others like us. I ask only because I spent some time looking for the same thing. How different things would have been if something had come along! Dear Tiago might have ended up back in mother’s good graces.” He sighed, shaking his head, and took the bottle James offered. “All these what-ifs,” he said, after another large pull from the bottle. “It does no good.”

They lapsed into comfortable but subdued silence, passing the bottle back and forth at regular intervals. They had been doing this for several years by now, though James still couldn’t quite believe that the two of them could sit together so calmly, with such a weight of understanding between them. It was true that they first year James had nearly killed him, and hadn’t missed the fact that Silva hadn’t fought back for an instant. It had been that lack of response that had awakened James’s curiosity, and perhaps his spite, too; if Raoul Silva wanted to die he would have to do the job himself. James had given him ample change to die the last time, and he had stubbornly refused. His subsequence escape had added insult to injury, but when it had come time for any final blow James might have delivered, he didn’t do it. Instead he had let the man talk and, most surprisingly, found himself talking back. It was odd to speak to someone who had known M as he had; who could have so easily been him, just as James had once been so close to being Silva. James could have easily grown to accept Silva’s hatred but what he hadn’t expected was the man’s grief, which had been just as devastating as his own.

“But you wanted her dead,” he had said on that first evening, as they had sat on the cold stones only feet away from the bloodstains they were trying to avoid seeing. “You wanted this.”

“No,” Silva had sighed, leaning his head back against a pew; like the present his hair had been dark then, what James assumed was his natural colour, and he had marvelled at how strangely ordinary the man had looked. “I didn’t want her dead. I wanted what she had done to me gone. Like how suicide isn’t because one wants to die, but because one wants to escape. I wanted to kill her betrayal. Not her.”

James hadn’t felt the need to point out that was impossible; one look at the exhausted man next to him told him that Silva already knew that.

“I am glad,” Silva said eventually, when the contents of the present bottle were nearly gone, “that you enjoy a similar kind of melodrama.”

“This?” James asked, looking around the chapel. “I think some people would call it coping.”

Silva laughed. “I doubt it. If it were anything like that, the two of us wouldn’t be anywhere near it.”

“I suppose you have a valid point. Getting through the year, then.”

“One does what one must.”

“What are you doing with yourself these days, anyway?” James asked, not really expecting a response. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know, dear James,” Silva said pleasantly, which was disappointing but not surprising. James wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was curious about what the man got up to; he himself had work at Six to occupy him, but he was unsure of what Silva got up to. Aside from a brief reappearance to assist with the Spectre mess a few years back – a sight which, combined with Q’s efforts, had been phenomenal to watch – Silva had dropped completely off the radar.

“Q is curious,” James said, and Silva’s face lit up.

“How is the clever boy?” he asked. “My, he must be out of school by now.”

James snorted. “Still looking for you.”

“Tell him he’s doing an atrocious job. There hadn’t been a blip on my radar.”

“Gladly. I’m sure he’ll love to hear it.”

“I do admit I worry he might find me one day, but don’t quote that to him. His work on the Nine Eyes program was incredible.”

“He does wonder why you showed up to help with that,” James said, seizing the opportunity to finally get some answers. He hadn’t been the only one to hardly believe his eyes when Silva had showed up, barely recognisable with his short dark hair and brown-green eyes, armed with nothing but his laptop. He had vanished as quickly and mysteriously as he had come, leaving no time for questioning – a fact which was unsurprising given the fact he was wanted for terrorism.

“One last favour for mother,” Silva said, and surprisingly elaborated. “Not to mention the fact that oaf Blofeld always got on my nerve. I can never stand those all-powerful types, and his insanity was the icing on the cake. I’ve never heard delusions like it! He had it in his head that he was pulling the strings behind what happened here, and I refuse to allow anyone to appropriate my successes or my mistakes. Insolent fool.”

James smiled, amused. “I did wonder about that.”

“I can’t stand men who only _think_ they are clever, James. Actually clever men I can respect, but only thinking it? Pathetic.”

“How did you know what was going on?” James asked. “I’m assuming you weren’t sent a recording.”

“No, not quite. But you forget that when she was recording that video, I had full access to her computer,” Silva said, giving a small smile. “Every single thing she knew, I knew. Of course, I kept that from our mutual friends. I wasn’t all that interested in it at the time, you see.”

“You thought you were going to die.”

“In fact I hoped it,” Silva said simply. “But things don’t always go to plan. I’m doomed to live to a ripe old age.”

“If it makes you feel better,” James said, taking his turn from the bottle. “I’m dreading it myself.”

They finished up the bottle in a wry toast to the comment and then, as always, Silva stood.

“I put in an order at the usual florist,” he said, adjusting his coat. “Send mother my love, and let me know next time where she tells me to shove it.”

James snorted. “Noted.”

“Stay out of trouble, James,” Silva said, and was gone before James could give any smart comment in response.

Perhaps it was for the best. James was growing to look forward to their meetings; he might have told him the same in return.


End file.
